Jacob Black Was The Only Good Thing
by Knackard
Summary: Still mourning her grandfather's death, a nineteen year old Renesmee Cullen moves to Forks to escape her father's micromanagement and her mother's narcissism, and feels an inexplicable pull to a handsome giant. AH
1. Chapter 1

"_Bella_?"

I'd only been in Forks for forty-eight hours, and already I'd been mistaken for my mother more times than I could count. Although admittedly, in my current inebriated state I couldn't count much of anything.

"Nope," I answered without turning away from the bartender who was making eyes at me. "No Bellas here."

"Oh...sorry." Something in the voice caught my attention. It was male, and deep, and it sounded the way my gimlet-addled brain imagined a lamb's ear felt, but that wasn't what grabbed my ear. "My mistake."

Oh, there it was: the chime of dashed hopes. This one must have been a spurned lover from my mother's high school days. I'd already met Tyler, Mike and James, and the one thing they all had in common was that just after calling me by my mother's name, they had tried to suck me into giving them an update on the state of her marital happiness. I was tired of pretending to be friendly to middle-aged men who resented one half of my genetic makeup and carried a torch for the other half. My mother had a lot of annoying admirers when she was a teen. Although none of them so far had had a voice that sounded like an orgasm in the woods, like this guy.

I half-turned to see who had spoken, and looked up. And up. And...up. He had already started walking away, and all I saw was an ass you could bounce a hubcap off of, cheekbones that would slice Emmentaler, and the shiniest black hair I'd ever seen.

Suddenly the bartender looked a lot less cute.

"Who was _that_?" I asked my favorite drinking companion, Beth. She was also my cousin, the daughter of my aunt Rosalie and uncle Emmett. It was her old fake ID I was using now: on her twenty-first birthday she had presented me with the driver's license of Shannon Fong-Kline, 27. I'd been using it for the past six months and no one had ever questioned it, either because I looked too boring to start trouble or because I was such a sex-bomb.

Maybe both.

Beth shrugged. "Dunno. Guy from the Reservation, I would guess."

"Do they all look like that?"

"Like what?"

"Um, like seven-foot tall Adonises...Adoni...Adones...help me out here, what am I trying to say?"

"That guy was pretty hot, I guess. Not really my type, but..."

"What, because his genitals are on the outside?"

"That does tend to put a damper on things, yes. Now, if he has a sister...Didn't he look kinda old, though? I thought he looked kinda old."

"I only saw his backside." His sleek, toned backside, held lovingly by his tight blue jeans.

"Well, I don't really know the people here any more than you do."

"You lived here two years ago!"

"Yeah, but I didn't spend _time _here, I just had a PO box. This town's a crypt." Beth checked her phone and suddenly became all business. "Hey, speaking of, if I'm gonna make it back to Seattle tonight I gotta run."

"Just come crash at Ch-my place."

"Nah, I want to be fresh tomorrow. Love you, sugar." Beth kissed me on both cheeks and vanished.

Sighing, I paid my bar tab-the cute bartender waived off two of my three gimlets and hoped he'd see me again. I cabbed it home and fell asleep the second my head hit pillow.

In a dark bar, in a small town, I could see why everyone mistook me for my mother. In the brilliant daylight of our Santa Barbara home, we looked nothing alike. For one thing, although she was a youthful thirty-seven years old, she would never look nineteen again. We had roughly the same size and build, and everyone said I had her eyes. I didn't see it. Hers were darker, huge drops of chocolate in a glass of milk. Like a Disney Princess. My coloring was what hers would be if you ran her through the wash and her colors ran: lighter brown hair and eyes, darker skin. I thought I took more after my dad, honestly. At least I got his cheekbones. I didn't know where I'd gotten my boobs, since there wasn't a handful of mammary tissue between either parent.

My mother loved to tell me the story of how she and my father met in Biology class, fell in love on a class trip to Italy, and got married right after graduation. I was born three months later. You do the math.

It must have seemed like having a newborn would put paid to Edward's plans of training to become a concert pianist at Juilliard while Bella accepted a scholarship into NYU. But Edward came from money, so there was no need to panic. My grandparents on my father's side lived half the year abroad and it would be impractical for them to take me in, but my Grandpa Charlie volunteered to let me live with him in Forks until my parents could get on their feet. The Cullen grandparents paid for my upkeep, and Charlie had a woman from the Reservation watch me during the day. I loved my parents and my paternal grandparents, but it was really Grandpa Charlie and Leah Uley who raised me, with occasional input from Leah's husband Sam. Everyone thought it would be temporary, a year at the most. Two years. Then three. Four.

It didn't change until my parents graduated from their respective schools and Edward landed a contract with a major record label. They bought a house in Southern California and carted me out there, and I learned the difference between having parents who swooped in like heroes every Christmas and summer to shower me with gifts, and actually living under one roof with them. My dad was a lot more tense and obsessive than Grandpa Charlie; my mom was a total narcissist. I learned all the right things to do and say to their faces while inwardly wishing they'd just let me go back to Forks and live with my saturnine, wonderful old Grandpa Charlie. He used to let me put the worms on the hooks when he took me fishing. My parents didn't even let me put my feet in the glassy green manmade pond in our backyard.

It wasn't all bad. I did still see Charlie, although I never went back to Forks. Instead Charlie visited us. I knew to look in his left coat pocket for candy when we met him at the airport.

My parents didn't like me to have candy, so it was our secret.

When I was six I showed him my rock collection, with a Shells-and-Sea-Glass Auxiliary. When I was eight, he taught me how to skip stones. At eleven, he and I read the entire _Series of Unfortunate Events_out loud to each other, chapter by chapter. By the time I hit fifteen he was starting to give me driving practice in parking lots. Most kids looked forward to summer because it meant a break from school. I looked forward to it because it meant I would get my granddaddy to myself for a whole three weeks.

My father played a maximum of twenty concerts a year, earning international praise with every appearance. It probably didn't hurt that he looked the way he did. Even in the mainstream the name of Edward Cullen was dropped reverently into conversation, usually by the same people who were floored by Andrea Bocelli and Joshua Bell. I personally thought his style lacked nuance. It sounded to me like he was trying to mash out tunes through a thick coating of corn syrup, but combined with those eyes and that rock-star hair his playing pulled in the big bucks. My Grandpa Carlisle always said that Edward could read the minds of the populace and give them exactly what they didn't know they wanted, and there was nothing in our steadily increasing line of cars and houses to contradict that theory.

I disliked my father on the principle that a teenage girl is supposed to be at odds with her dad, but it was my mother who really put me into therapy. Nothing bad ever seemed to happen to the woman. She was forever shielded from the consequences of her actions. Hell, even when she got knocked up right out of high school she didn't have to sacrifice one bullet point on her bucket list. And her charmed existence sometimes extended to the rest of us as well. When the housing bubble burst, our house actually doubled in value. When the government slashed spending on the arts, my father somehow ended up getting paid _more _to play the piano. When Southern California experienced terrible droughts, mudslides and fires, we were completely unaffected. The only thing she couldn't protect me from was herself. She was hyper-sensitive, and precious, and about as smart as a melted lipstick. She was a terrible mother. My therapist gave me techniques to deal with her self-importance.

It was a pity her halo of invincibility couldn't extend to Grandpa Charlie, who died a few months before my sixteenth birthday. His funeral was the first time I'd been back to Forks since I was four, and on top of my own grieving I had to deal with my mother's jealousy when I bawled into Leah's shoulder instead of hers. I bombed my first driving test because I was crying too hard to see the road. My second road test was scheduled for right after a lawyer came down to Santa Barbara to settle some points with us regarding the limited contents of Grandpa Charlie's will. He hadn't had much in the way of material possessions, but he did have a tiny little three-bedroom house in Forks. Which he left to me.

After I heard that I canceled my driver's test. What was the point? I'd be too distracted to pass.

My parents urged me to sell the house and invest the money wisely, perhaps under the guidance of my aunt Alice, a frighteningly successful investment banker. Instead, the moment I turned eighteen I packed up all my shit and went to live with my black sheep cousin Beth, who owned a small coffee shop in downtown Seattle. I stayed with her for a year, saving up dough until I had enough of a cushion to start living in Forks. My parents staunchly refused to support what they considered my mad rebellion.

"What's in Forks?" My mother demanded, then answered herself, "Nothing. There's nothing in Forks. Trust me, you'll miss civilization after a week."

And she was right. The house felt wrong without Charlie in it, and I remembered it being a whole lot bigger. And aside from people who thought I was my mother, I had nobody here to talk to.

I went back to the bar the next night, but there was a different bartender and no handsome giants tried to talk to me. After that I just spent my time looking for a job. Eventually I was hired for just-above-minimum-wage at the one and only local library. I made a button that said _Data Entry Is My Passion _and wore it to work. I got another job at the local Barnes & Noble, because I wouldn't be able to keep both the gas and the water running in my nice free house without a second job. I hated both jobs, but I liked working in places that smelled like books.

My father called me up sometimes to ask how I was doing and whether I was regretting this shiftless existence yet. My answer was always _no_. I don't know what other response he expected to get from a nineteen year old.

I emailed Leah Uley to let her know I was living in Forks again.

_Nesmee_, she'd written. The Cullens all called me Carlie, short for Renesmee Carlie Cullen. But growing up Grandpa Charlie said it was too confusing to have a Carlie and a Charlie, so he'd given me another nickname, Nesmee. I thought of it as my Forks name.

_Nesmee, I'm having a barbecue this weekend. You can meet some of my friends and have some charred red meat. I hope you can come! I miss you!_

_Leah_

Leah's barbecue was on one of the rare sunny days. It was early October but the weather was still warm and the trees hadn't begun to change yet. I made a huge batch of guacamole and another huge batch of mango salsa, and carted it off to the reservation in my VW Golf. The car had been given to me for my seventeenth birthday by my grandparents. They hadn't been able to come to my birthday party because they were touring Venice for the eleventh time, but I liked the car quite a lot.

"Nesmee!" Leah saw me pull up and ran out to help me carry in my mongo bowls of condiments. "I'm so glad you're here! There are not enough women at this barbecue. Sam's got his whole fucking gang eating all the meat before anyone else gets a chance."

"Sam's in a gang?"

"Just a figure of speech," Leah laughed. "So, how long have you been here?"

"Oh, just like a month. I'm still sort of getting settled in."

"Your eyes look sad. Are you holding up okay, Nesmee?" My eyes looked sad?

"Well, you know…I'm living in Grandpa Charlie's old house and I just really miss him. And I don't know much of anyone here so…I just need to get out more, I guess."

"Well, then I'm extra glad you came. Hey, Sam, look who's here!" Sam Uley turned away from the group of guys he'd been talking to and came over. He looked a lot like I remembered, a little thicker around the midsection, grayer on top, considerably more weathered, but with the same matter-of-fact smile. He gave me a big hug.

"Hey, Nesmee, how's it hanging?"

"Low and lazy," I drawled. Sam gave a surprised laugh. "Hey, little lady, I don't remember telling you you could grow up. Now I feel old."

"Oh, Sam," I said sweetly, "You were always old to me." Leah snickered and hurried off with the food I'd brought.

"Want a beer?" Sam asked me. I nodded emphatically. "Hey, come meet the guys." He conducted me to the group he'd been talking to earlier. I recognized a few of them, but just barely. I didn't have a lot of memories from early childhood—except of Grandpa Charlie. "This is Embry Call," he said, and Embry shook my hand. "Paule Lahote, Jared and his wife Kim—" We exchanged courteous nods; I didn't remember any of them. "Quil Ateara, his girlfriend Claire. And you probably remember Leah's brother Seth." Finally, a face I knew.

"Duh!" I squealed. "Hey, Seth!" Seth must have been in his thirties by now, but he looked hot. Actually, all these guys were pretty foxy, and not in the expensive, professionally-buffed manner of my father. They looked like surfers or something, all long-haired and tan, with blindingly white teeth.

"Oh, hey, and I think Jake is around here somewhere…Yo, Jacob!"

A familiar head of shiny hair turned and I found myself looking at the giant from the bar.

Oh my god, and I'd thought his _backside_ looked good…

The giant came over to us. His eyes were expressing a range of emotions that mostly centered on bewildered amusement.

"This is Jacob Black. Jake, you were in college when Nesmee lived with Charlie."

"I've heard him mention you," he said, taking my hand. "It's nice to meet you."

"You knew Charlie?" I asked.

"Yeah, he was best friends with my dad."

"Oh, you must be Billy's son! Well, it's really good to finally meet you, Jacob Black. I was sorry to hear about your dad. He was always really nice to me…"

"Well, thank you. We saw it coming for a while, at least we had time to prepare. I'm sorry about Charlie."

"Yeah…" I didn't really want to stand here and talk about our dead father-figures all day. "Hey, maybe you can show me where the meat is?" Jacob's eyes crinkled and an incredibly warm smile made its way across his lips.

"Yeah, we've got a whole deer over here." We left the group and crossed to the fire pit where, no lie, there was an actual deer on a spit.

"Jesus, you weren't kidding, were you?"

"We're a hungry bunch."

"Where'd you get Bambi from?" I asked as Jacob grabbed a knife and started hacking off bits of thigh.

"Oh, about twelve miles north of here, where it was taking a leak by a stream," he said, handing me a plate heaped with venison.

"You're kidding. You guys shot it yourself?"

"Yeah, Seth and I brought the deer. Sam and Quil cleaned it and Leah cooked it. And Embry ate most of it."

"Poor little Bambi. Poor, delicious Bambi." I tore a chunk off a bone and masticated thoughtfully. "I guess I can picture you with a hunting rifle. It's a pretty scary image, actually."

"Oh, we didn't use rifles."

"Hand guns? Machine guns?"

He quirked his eyebrows at me. "Not really, no. Think low-tech."

"…Tazers?" I hazarded. Jacob laughed.

"Bow and arrows," he said, his white teeth shining. "Harder that way."

"Jeez, I didn't know people still did that."

"Yeah, well, we do. Make your own weapons, make your own ammo…not a bad way to shoot your own food."

"Well, you shot a good one, Jacob Black," I said. "What else do you do for fun?" Jacob picked a piece of meat from my plate and brought it delicately to his mouth. Watching him chew made my insides turn to butter and melt into my underwear. The man made eating deer meat look like porn. Very, very specific porn.

"Well, I fix cars," he offered. "Maybe it shouldn't count as fun since it's my job, but I like it."

"Where would I go to have you look at my car?" I asked. There was nothing wrong with my car, but damned if I was going to let a golden opportunity like this pass.

"You could bring it to the garage. Or I could take a look at it now, if you've got it on you."

I put down the plate and wiped my greasy fingers on a napkin. "Come see." Jacob wiped his hands on his jeans. I brought him around to the front of the house, where I'd parked.

"Hey, nice one," he said admiringly. "The Golf is a good car. You can fit an elk into the back, although the antlers have to ride shotgun."

"I've never tried that," I laughed. "What I really want is to drive a Rabbit. I saw one parked out here..." I pointed five cars down the row. "I'm not enough of a mechanic to own that car. Nobody knows how to fix the damn things anymore."

"Speak for yourself," Jacob said, walking toward the ancient piece of machinery. He leaned against the hood and crossed his feet at the ankles, looking a trifle smug.

"Oh my god, is this yours?" I asked excitedly, bouncing over to it. I ran a hand over the hood, down the grille and across the lights.

"Would you and the car like a moment of privacy?" Jacob asked slyly.

"Whatever, you know this baby turns you on. I've never met anybody who had a car like this who didn't have a major boner for it."

"Well, that's…I don't even know how to respond to that." Jacob started laughing. "You are not at all like I expected." Abruptly I stopped petting his car. I knew what came next; I'd been getting it all month. _How's your mother? Is she still with that Cullen guy? Yeah? Still married, huh?_

"I get that a lot," I mumbled. "Especially around here."

"Hey, sorry," Jacob said lightly, raising his hands. "I didn't mean to offend. Charlie just never mentioned you were into cars." Charlie? _Oh._

"Oh. I'm not, usually. I mean, I can check the oil and everything... Sorry, I thought you were…"

"Thought I was what?"

"Well, ever since I got back people have been comparing me to my mother. Considering she only lived here for three years, a lot of people remember her. It's getting kinda old, actually."

"The thought never crossed my mind," he said.

"Yes it did. You thought I was her, the other night. In that bar." Jacob shrugged.

"Yeah well, I only really saw you from behind. Now that I've got a good look, there isn't much of a resemblance."

"You're the first person to say that. So, you were friends with her?"

"Not really," Jacob said. "We played a little bit when we were really young. She was older than me, I just tagged along." He nudged my upper arm with a conciliatory hand. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, it's okay," I said. "I just assumed you were like all the others. I'm glad you're not." I smiled foolishly at him. For some reason, Jacob's gaze dropped and he started to study his bare feet.

"Your feet are disgusting," I said conversationally. Jacob barked out a laugh.

"Well, yeah. Most of me's disgusting most of the time."

"That can't be true."

"Oh, it is," he assured me. "I'm usually covered in engine oil, dirt, dust and occasionally blood. And I have two dogs who shed like motherfuckers."

"Well, I don't mind a little blood," I joked. "You know, I remembered you from the bar as soon as I saw you. I only saw your backside then." Jacob shifted uncomfortably.

"Ah."

"Oh, no need to be embarrassed. It's a very nice backside." The nicest.

"Um, thanks?"

"No problem. So, where's the garage you work at? I should probably take my car in for a tune-up one of these days."

"Yeah, okay. Um, just take County Road 8 to…here, I'd better just write it down." He opened his car door and rummaged around til he found a piece of paper and a grubby pen, then scribbled the address down. His writing was compact and spiky, just barely legible. He didn't include a number.

"So, if I were to go there, say, next week, would I find you covered in engine oil and dog fur and blood?" Jacob laughed. It was a strangely tight sound.

"Yeah, probably," he said.

"Then I look forward to it," I said, handing the pen back to him and pocketing the slip of paper. "I'm gonna go find Leah and reminisce. See you around." I walked into the house. I couldn't resist one last look out the window. Jacob was still standing there, staring at the front door.


	2. Chapter 2

I had thirteen sex dreams over the next eight days. All of them revolved around leanly-muscled giants with long, shiny hair and dirty feet. I woke myself up with my fingers most mornings. Damn, but Jacob Black was a fucking looker.

Leah and I went out for lunch a couple times. We talked about the past, but even more we talked about the present: my therapy, my parents, her fertility issues, our jobs. Once, Leah's cousin Emily joined us and we got sushi in Port Angeles. It was nice to have female friends. Or any friends. Even though Leah was the same age as my parents, I felt like I could relate to her. We'd emailed for years while I lived in California, and I always considered her the big sister I never had.

A week or so later, I drove my car out to the reservation and found the garage. To my surprise, the sign over the office door read _Black Auto_. Jacob didn't work here, he owned the place. And from the look of it, he did all right: it looked a lot spiffier than most country auto shops I'd seen. It was even nicer than the one in Port Angeles, where a mechanic had tried to convince me I needed a whole new transmission after only a few thousand miles.

There were some grease monkeys clanking around underneath the cars in the shop, but they were all wearing boots of average size. Not who I was looking for.

"Is Jacob here?" I asked loudly. A guy my age or a little older rolled out from under a Lexus and looked me up and down, then back up again. His eyes stuck for a second on the top button of my shirt.

"Who's looking for him?" he asked. The other grease monkey rolled out and kicked the first one in the shin.

"Don't be a dick, Shawn. Jake's down at the creek, be back in maybe an hour. You need me to take a look at your car?"

"No, that's okay," I said. "Which direction is the creek?"

Shawn scowled. "North by northwest," he said. "Nothing wrong with your bug I can't fix."

"It's a Golf, not a bug," I said. "See you."

As I went around the outside of the garage I heard Shawn grumble, "Man, that asshole gets all the luck."

I struck north by northwest and quickly hit a narrow path that struck downhill. I followed it for about ten minutes until I heard the splash of moving water. Through the trees I could see the creek.

And Jacob, without a shirt or shoes or, in fact, pants, doing a cannonball from a tree branch into the part where the creek widened into a swimming hole.

Oh my god, he was gorgeous. His hair was all wet; out of its ponytail, it was just long enough to touch his shoulders. I noticed that he had some gray at his temples. Not a lot; it only showed in the flash of light when the sun poked out from behind a cloud. And he had the most beautiful neck; I wanted to lick the place it met his jaw. There were sweet little crinkles around his eyes and mouth from where he smiled.

I was staring so hard at his miraculous abdominal muscles that I lost my footing and sent a shower of rocks down the path. Jacob heard—although how could he, over the rushing of the water?—and turned his head in my direction.

"Don't you have a bathtub?" I called out. The reaction in his face was perfect, moving through pleasure, consternation and embarrassment in half a second. He splashed into shallow water and stood there, dripping.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, not unkindly.

"I brought my car to your shop and those guys said I could find you here."

"Oh. Well, they could have taken a look at it."

"I wanted to see you."

"Really?" A grin lit up his face and he looked momentarily boyish. I stumbled down the rest of the path and splashed over to him. "Your shoes are all wet," he said, pointing. The stream was only about a foot deep here, and the water was cold but very clear.

"I don't care."

"You don't—"

"Nope. Fuck my shoes."

"Ah…So, what did you want to see me for?" _Things not seemly to be named_, I thought, staring openly at the place where the hair on his eloquently defined stomach disappeared into his boxers.

"Well," I said, "I mean, look at you." That wasn't really what I meant to say but it was so definitely what I was thinking that I couldn't see how to take it back. Jacob seemed mildly uncomfortable. His black eyes widened and I wondered if he had any irises at all, or just pupil. He took a deep breath, started to say something, then stopped.

"Um, how old are you again?" he said after a moment.

"Nineteen," I said. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-five."

"Okay, then. That's out of the way." There were goose bumps along his shoulders. Little pools of water had collected in the hollows of his collarbones. I reached up and dipped my middle finger in one of them and held it up to the light. Jacob shivered. "Did you want this?" I asked him. He shook his head, looking positively alarmed.

So I put my finger to my mouth and sucked the droplet away. Jacob's breath caught in his throat.

"If I kiss you," he said very quietly, "Are you going to hit me?"

"Do you want me to hit you?" I asked him.

Instead of answering, he took my face between his hands and kissed me hard. I tangled my fingers through his hair. It was still wet and my fingers caught; I may have tugged a little harder than necessary. Jacob grunted into my mouth and wrapped his arms around me so tightly I could barely breathe, lifted me up so I was closer to his height. I wrapped my legs around his middle and felt his thigh muscles tensing against the added weight and the force of the current.

"My god you're beautiful," I whispered into his lips, and then I dug my fingernails into his shoulder blades. I couldn't help it; this man made me feel things so violently. He forced my mouth open with his tongue and I felt our teeth scrape erratically together. "I've been having dreams about you." He kissed a line of second-degree burns down my jaw line and onto my throat. "You want to know what you were doing in them?" He groaned into my neck.

"You don't even know me," he said.

"I want to."

"I'm way too old for you," he added desperately.

"That's a lie. You're a liar, Jacob Black." I jerked his hair again, fastened my lips against his collarbone and began to nibble.

"Fuck," he said. Then, "Oh, _fuck_." He carried me out of the stream and threw me against a huge cedar. I felt the bark scrape against me through the thin fabric of my shirt and exulted in the sharp pain of it.

"That's the right attitude," I said, and started to unbutton my shirt.

"Too fucking slow," he said, pushing my hands away and yanking my shirt open. It was a sweet little sleeveless number, now buttonless as well.

I slid down his body and scrabbled at the buttons of my shorts. I rescued a single condom from my pocket as the shorts fell to the ground and I stepped out of them.

"You were planning this?" he asked incredulously, watching me expertly peel open the packet and roll the condom onto his cock. He lurched a little when I touched him, ran his hands down my waist and back toward my ass, then curled his fingers around it and lifted me back up against the tree.

"No," I said, "I always carry condoms, don't you?" Jacob grinned then, a happy and eager grin that didn't stop till it reached his eyebrows. He held me up with one hand and used the other to reach down between my legs.

"I may start to," he said, and burrowed his fingers through pubic hair and outer labia and inner labia. I sucked in my breath. His fingers felt _good_, slippery and long and a little rough.

"Don't warm me up," I said breathlessly. "I want you to fuck me tight." His cock, which had been pressing against my inner thigh, throbbed in response. He was so hard the tip had gone all purple and swollen. I loved when they did that.

Jacob pulled his hand away from my pussy and then slowly painted a line of wetness down my cheek. "You got it, pretty girl."

And then he was holding his cock against me and pressing it past my vulva. It was tight, incredibly tight, so tight it stung. I'd been with plenty of big guys before but this man was one and a third human scale. I wasn't a size junkie by any means but I had to admit that if I could have made the ideal dildo, Jacob Black's torpedo would be it.

I hissed when he pushed in, threw my head back against the tree and moaned out loud. "Oh, fuuuck, you asshole, that hurts."

Jacob grabbed both my wrists in one hand and held them up high above my head. I felt exposed, like I was being stretched on a rack. The cool October breeze whipped across my nipples, hardening them and attracting the attention of Jacob's teeth.

"Oh," I said. "Ahhhhhh, sweet Jesus."

"Well, Ness? Are you enjoying yourself?" I struggled against his hands but he was much stronger than me, so I clenched my legs around him and began to move my hips, writhing against his cock. He began to match my movements, keeping my hands pinned in place with one of his and the other one wrapped around my ass. "Is this why you wanted to see me?"

He drove into me harder but not faster. He was wrapped so tightly up in my pussy that I could feel every detail of his dick as it squeezed past my vaginal nerve endings. The pinching sensation had given way to a delicious tension. The pain wasn't gone, but it harmonized damn near perfectly with the pleasure.

Jacob licked up a bead of sweat that was coursing down my neck, and his lips stayed there, tracing the tendons that were standing out as I strained my head backward. This felt unimaginably good, the only thing it needed was…

Jacob's fingers crept further down my butt, and then he carefully slid one finger about an inch into my asshole. It was like pressing a trigger: the tension between my legs released explosively. The scream that had been building in my throat got swallowed up in the shockwaves and all I could do was ride it out with my eyes screwed closed and my mouth open in a silent howl. I felt Jacob's thrusts become more irregular, until he yelled something surprised and incoherent in my ear, making my eardrum sting like a bitch.

Suddenly he collapsed, dropping to his knees and then falling onto his back. He landed on weed-covered rocks, but he took care that I land on top. I let out an _oof_ and fell forward onto his chest. His dark skin was flushed and sweaty, and I could see where his heart pounded through his ribcage. He stared straight up at the clouds, glassy-eyed.

"Owww," he said vaguely as gravel crunched beneath him. I tried to rally my legs to stand up, but they were being uncooperative.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked the sky.

"I'm Ness," I said. "You just told me so yourself." Jacob's eyes slid down to me, past my open shirt, across my breasts that were propped above my bra, down beyond my bellybutton and bush, to my spread thighs. I was still attached to him, but between my legs could plainly be seen a stain of red.

"You're bleeding," he said dazedly. Then, realizing what he'd just said, "Shit, Ness, you're _bleeding_." He sat up, looked down to our red-tinted pubic hair. "Are you okay? That wasn't your first—"

"Nah," I said, kissing the little worry lines on his forehead and climbing off him. I winced a little at the soreness between my legs. "I told you I wanted you to fuck me tight. Does it bother you, the blood?"

"Not really. You're sure I didn't hurt you?"

"Of course you did." I held out a hand and helped him up, then started to pull my clothes back on. "I wanted you to. Oh, dear, Jacob, you've pulled half the buttons off. Well, I guess I won't be wearing my shirt anymore." He laughed and pulled me into a hug, my tits pressed against his lower ribs. I snaked my arms around his waist and traced the muscles that curved against his spine. I felt his warm breath in my hair, heard the infinitesimal _smack_ of a kiss that he pressed to the part in my hair. The sweaty, pink parts of me that were exposed to the autumn air began to cool, and I snuggled into Jacob's big warm arms. "You feel like a shaved bear," I told his chest. I rubbed my cheek against his body hair and purred. I felt a laugh rumble out of him, lung-deep.

"Ness," he said quietly, "Short for Nesmee. That's a weird name."

"Nesmee short for Renesmee," I said. "Ain't that a kicker?" I pushed out of his arms and glanced over him. He was still ass-naked, standing there with his arms folded like he was carved out of wood. "You are an outrageous specimen," I informed him. "Give me your shirt?" He obligingly pulled his shirt off a bush and handed it over. It was several sizes too large for me. I was completely swimming in it, so I tied the hem into a knot at my waist, Nineties-style.

"I just have to ask," Jacob began, "Did you really just come down here to have sex with me?"

"I don't remember why I came down here," I said honestly. "I think I thought I just wanted to see you again. I didn't know you'd be in your skivvies." Jacob chuckled and pulled on his shorts, then put his arm around my waist and lifted me up for a kiss that went on a long, sunlit time. By the end of it my—well, Jacob's—shirt had come untied, and my hands were in his pants, massaging his fast-growing cock.

"Mmmmm," he groaned, "Please."

"What was that, Jacob?" I asked sweetly.

"Please," he said urgently.

"You are one greedy little bitch," I said, "And greedy little bitches don't get dessert." I began to stroke him harder, squeezing off at the tip and twisting back down the shaft. His cock was still all slippery from the lube in the condom, not to mention the various fluids that were nature's gift to handjobs.

"Whatever you say," he rasped. I stroked harder, and before long he hollered again and spent himself in my palm. He leaned forward and breathed hard into my hair. I reached up and very deliberately wiped my cummy hand down his stomach.

"Well, I'll see you around, Jacob Black," I whispered in his ear. Then I walked unstably back up the trail that led past the garage. Shawn and the other one watched me go past them, climb into the driver's seat of my Golf, and turn the key. Jacob walked slowly around to the front of the building, holding my ruined shirt balled up in one fist. In the rearview mirror I saw Shawn and the other one begin to bombard him with questions, but he just stood there and watched me drive away, a goofy smile on his face.

I called my mother on my way home. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, but I was so high from sexing Jake Black that I momentarily forgot who my mother was.

"Hey, baby!" she gushed.

"Hey, Mom. What's happening?"

"Oh, your dad and I went to a gala last night and you just wouldn't believe it, you remember Irina Denali, that Russki violinist?" I nodded, which my mother couldn't see over the phone, but she didn't pause to wait for a response. "Well, she was wearing my dress. I swear to god, I just wanted to throw a drink in her face." She tittered. "I mean, everyone in L.A. knows I wear McQueen…" I mentally changed the station to Simon and Garfunkel and imagined that my mother's voice was a flock of faraway birds. I had long ago given up wishing I had a mother who ever asked me what was going on, or bothered to call me on the phone, or gave a crap at all about anything other than herself. My therapist in Santa Barbara assured me that there was no cure for narcissism and I was better off learning to tune her out. I felt my happy sex-high slipping away from me and wondered if I could hang up without offending her.

Forty-five minutes later I still had no idea what my mother had been on about. As I unlocked my front door, I told her I was driving and I had to go. Then I blasted Fleetwood Mac on the speakers in my living room and danced in my underwear. It was a coping mechanism my therapist and I had worked out.

I met Leah a few days later for lunch, and the first thing she did when she saw me was punch my arm in mock-anger.

"What did you do to Jacob?" she asked loudly. Several coffee-nursing patrons of the diner looked around at us.

"Um, nothing?"

"Bull_shit_, nothing. Joe said you went out to see Jacob in the woods and came back out wearing his shirt."

I laughed. "Oh, _that_. We had sex."

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No? Wait, was that wrong?"

"On so many levels," Leah said, shaking her head, "You are one fucked-up little lady. You don't even know him."

"Yeah, that's what he said, too. Is there some egregious character flaw everyone knows about but me? Is he crazy? Alcoholic? Married? Is he mad?"

"Mad? Is Jacob _mad_?" Leah looked at a loss for words.

"Oh god, he's mad, isn't he? Why is he mad?"

"No, he's not mad. He and Sam went surfing yesterday and he wouldn't stop singing."

"Oh, can Jacob sing, too? He _is_ a talented fellow."

"No, he can't sing, and it drove Sam crazy. I think you broke him."

"Huh," I said. "Cool."

The next morning I woke early and couldn't get back to sleep. The dream that had woken me was very fresh. Fresh and wet and hard. I made myself some tea, but it didn't calm me down. I felt antsy and terribly horny.

So I drove out to the reservation and wound up at Jacob's house while the sun was coming up. The house was about a hundred yards from his shop, which I very vaguely remembered from when it was Billy's house and Grandpa Charlie used to take me out there for Sunday fish fry. I saw a car parked outside the shop already, probably Shawn's or Joe's. The kitchen light was on in Jacob's house. I saw his tall shadow moving around in there through a curtained window and heard the muffled and very off-key sound of a deep voice singing _Eye of the Tiger._

I knocked loudly on his front door. "Open up," I yelled in a deep voice. "Police." The singing broke off sharply. "We're looking for Jacob Black. Open the door."

The door whipped open. Jacob towered over me, backlit from the kitchen light.

"You're nabbed now, buster," I said very seriously to his erection, which was making a bid for freedom from its brief confines. Jacob grabbed my wrist and pulled me inside, slamming the screen door behind us. "Don't make a scene or I might have to fight dirty." Jacob pressed me against the back of his couch, steadied me with one strong hand and kissed me. He tasted like banana, left sweet potassium-y kisses on my cheeks and neck.

"Were you eating a banana, perchance?"

"Condemned man gets his choice of a last meal," he informed my throat.

"Hey, were you jerking off before or is this morning wood?" I slid my hands into his briefs and ran my fingers down his shaft. Every muscle from his thighs to his stomach tensed and he made a little choking sound.

"I was thinking about you, actually," he said. "I was wondering, do you make a habit of fucking strange men twice your age?"

"Do you fuck every teenager who comes onto you?"

"I haven't fucked a teenager since I was one. Sixteen years ago. Except you, of course."

"I'm honored."

"I'm too old for you. You make me feel dirty."

"Likewise, Gramps."

Jacob lifted me onto the back of the couch and pulled my shirt hurriedly over my head. I heard a seam rip. Then, without bothering about hooks, he yanked my bra down and began sucking on my breasts.

"Your tits are ridiculous," he said. "God, they're just perfect." He worked his way down to my pants, popped the button on them and pulled them down my legs. I wove my fingers into his hair and scritched his scalp while he began to kiss my inner thighs.

"Yours too," I said. "_Oh_!" The _Oh_ was a reaction to the tongue that was now making out with my cunt. I hunched forward over his head, my stomach compressing into a stack of folds, and ran my hands down the expanse of broad shoulders and back muscles. "Sonofabitch, that's good. Ah…, yes, fuck, yes, FUCK!" Jacob slid two fingers inside me and pressed them upward, rubbed them firmly against my G-spot while sucking at my clitoris. My screams were cut off as I came, shuddering, against his hand. A strangled sort of squeak made its way out of my mouth.

Jacob gently disengaged, then stood up. I hunched over and leaned into his chest, breathing heavily. He was also breathing heavily, though for a different reason. Before the waves of my orgasm could fully die down, I pulled Jacob's dick out of his underwear and rubbed the length of it against my soaking wet pussy.

"_Nng_," he said emphatically.

"Let me just…" I said, wriggling around until I could grab my pants with one hand and pull a condom out of a pocket. "Here." I rolled it onto him and he was in me in a second, locked into place, the ribs of the condom bumping past every sensitive nerve ending in my cunt. Jacob grabbed my ankles and swung them up over his shoulders. My center of gravity shifted and I flopped backward, upside down against the couch cushions. This angle did unspeakable things to my G-spot while Jacob did unspeakable things to my clit with both thumbs.

"Oh, god, Jacob, shit…" I babbled. "Fuck me harder, fuck me till you hurt me." Jacob reached down, grabbed me by one shoulder and held me in place.

"You want me to hurt you?" he growled.

"Yes, yes, yes…"

"Then ask me nicely, little girl." He stood without moving a muscle. I tried to get him to resume by wriggling against him, but he stilled my hips with one hand. "Be good, girlie," he said dangerously. I pursed my mouth closed and shook my head obstinately, tried to writhe again but he was way, way too strong for me and I couldn't budge.

"Oh, god, youdirtyrottenasshole," I whispered, straining every muscle in my body in a futile effort to move against his dick. He shook his head and pressed me down harder into the cushions, his granite-hard cock not even twitching against my vulva. I felt a bruise bloom under his hand. "Ohhh, I really hate you, Jacob Black."

"That's no way to get what you want," he said. "I can stand here all day. Little girls should respect their elders." I was so unbelievably turned on by this that I couldn't hold out any longer.

"Fuck," I burst out, "Please, please, please, please, _please_!"

"Please what?" he said almost lazily, in a seamless role-reversal of our exchange yesterday. His hair swung forward to cast his black eyes in shadow.

"Please, Jacob, please fuck me now?" I whispered. "I'm sorry I was rude, I won't do it again." Then, mercifully, he released my hips and began to pound steadily into me. The tip of his cock knocked against my cervix. I felt bruised and raw on the inside, every nerve standing on end.

"You'd better mind your manners," he said harshly, still pressing me into the couch with one gigantic hand.

"Yes, I need manners," I agreed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sor…I so…I…" My ability to form words fractured as he rubbed at my clit and I came a second time, massively, spilling a small amount of clear ejaculate out over Jacob's cock. That occasionally happened when my G-spot was properly stimulated; this was the first time another human being had ever done it to me. Jacob saw me go slack and silent and fucked me faster. He'd been on a hair trigger this whole time, and now he let out that ear-splitting yell while his whole body stiffened under the force of his orgasm.

After we'd both gotten our eyesight back, Jacob laced his fingers through mine and pulled me back up into a sitting position. All the blood rushed from my head and I collapsed woozily against him.

"How are you feeling, pretty girl?" he asked in a low voice.

"Docile," I replied, making swirls in his minimal body hair with my fingers. He wrapped both arms around me snugly. I burrowed closer to him.

"What are you doing, Ness?" he asked the top of my head.

"Drawing the sigil of Beelzebub on your stomach."

"No, I mean, in general. What are you doing here, with me?"

"Do you want the real answer or the cute answer?"

"The real one."

"I'm here," I said, sighing, "Because you are the sexiest motherfucker I've ever met, and I can't seem to keep my hands off you. Especially when you're not wearing a shirt. Also you make me laugh. Sexy and funny is simply not a combination I can reasonably be expected to resist."

"I was old enough to vote when you were still learning how to walk. Doesn't that bother you?"

"No," I said, digging my fingernails into his buttocks. I felt them flex. "It makes me want you more. It makes me want your cock and your shoulders and your neck and your thighs and your cock and your stomach and your hands. And your cock. I want that too, did I mention that?" I broke out of his arms and hopped down from the back of the couch. My legs were all stiff and bloodless, and I stumbled a little, but Jacob reached out to steady me. "Hey, who's that?" I asked, pointing to a picture of Jacob with his arm around a pretty Quileute woman. She looked his age.

Jacob suddenly flushed. "Um, that's, er, my girlfriend. Sort of."

"Huh," I said. "Does she know you're boinking someone else?"

"I haven't mentioned it, no," he said awkwardly. "We aren't, you know, we haven't actually declared exclusivity or…or anything like that. I didn't even put that picture there, she did."

"But is it assumed? Exclusivity?"

"Not sure. We don't talk about it much. It's really a very on-and-off thing. You know."

"Well, do you need to stop fucking me so you won't hurt her feelings?" Jacob looked at me like I'd just suggested he breathe underwater.

"Yeah, _no_."

"Which one is it, yeah or no?" I pulled on my pants and zipped them up. The button had come clean off, leaving an inch-long tear in its place.

"Well, how long before you stop coming by to jump my bones?"

I put my head to one side "Never? That's only like, a guesstimate, mind you, but I'd say probably never."

"Well then I think I'd better clear my schedule."

"Oh, goodie. Hand me my shirt." I inspected the sad garment. Jacob had popped seams in both sleeves taking it off of me. "You are just murder on clothes," I said severely.

"Then stop wearing them," he suggested, sliding his hands under the shirt I'd just put on. He rubbed warm circles across my back and pressed my entire body up against his.

"How on earth can I go to work at the library in the nude? A library is a hall of learning, you debauched man."

"Do you want breakfast before you go to your hall of learning? I have coffee and…coffee."

"I don't drink coffee," I said. "What else you got?" I went into his kitchen and saw that he'd been in the middle of peanut-buttering a piece of toast when I'd knocked on his door. The toast was now stone-cold. "You eat cold toast for breakfast? You are such a savage."

"It was hot before," he laughed. "You distracted—" He was interrupted by a loud bark that came from beneath my feet. I jumped and dropped the cold toast.

"Smooth move," he said, kissing the tip of my nose and bending to retrieve the cold, now dirty toast. "Marx and Wolf just want their breakfast, that's all."

"_Who_?"

"My dogs. I told you I have dogs, didn't I? Well, I have dogs. Wanna meet them?" I nodded mutely and followed him down to the basement, where two enormous, shaggy, gangly gray dogs greeted him enthusiastically, jumping all over the place and licking his face. The bigger one noticed me and ran straight to my crotch, where he snuffled around like he was looking for buried treasure.

"Well hello—" I checked his tag "—Wolf. I see you take after your daddy." Jacob looked up from the food he was pouring into their dishes and grinned. "Do they always stay in the basement?" I asked, looking around at the piles of junk covered by layers of dog fur.

"They sleep and eat down here. Mostly they follow me around the shop during the day."

"What kind of dogs are they?"

"Not sure," Jacob admitted. "They look like they're mostly deerhound, but I got 'em from a shelter so they could be anything. Good hunters, though."

"You take them hunting?"

"Sometimes. Or they bring me back dead animals and leave them on the porch."

"I thought only cats did that."

"You thought wrong. Or maybe they're part cat. How would I know?" Both dogs attacked their food with gusto, spraying bits of kibble all over the place.

"I begin to see why you feed them down here," I said.

We went back upstairs and I collected my things.

"Do you have to go?" Jacob asked me. He rubbed his coarse, warm hands under my shirt and up to by breasts.

I arched against him and said, "We-ell, when you put it that way-" he began to kiss my neck "—Yes. I do have to go." He groaned in disappointment. "Don't you have work to do?"

"The state I'm in, I'll probably put the engine in backward. I'm just working on some yuppie's Lexus."

"Who drives a Lexus around here?"

"For your information, Princess," he said in an exaggerated accent, "We gots plenty o' high-class folks hereabouts."

"And they all bring their cars to you, I suppose?"

"Yes, ma'am." His voice turned serious. "You're used to nice things, aren't you?"

"I know how to deal with nice things," I said cautiously. "I suppose you could say I'm used to them.

"How do you stand roughing it?"

"Did I give you the impression that I was suffering from a lack of trappings?" I asked. "Was that before or after my cunt swallowed you whole?"

He smiled bashfully. It was a strangely endearing sight. "It's just that basically no one stays in Forks unless they have to. At least you've got options."

"How would you know what options I've got?"

"Come on, Nessie, I know who your parents are. According to the laws of the universe, you should be lounging on your private beach right now." _Whoa, boy_.

"You know nothing about me," I snapped, suddenly annoyed. "How would you know what my life is like?"

"Well, every time we've tried to have a conversation we just ended up screwing," he said heatedly. "Excuse me for not knowing every detail of your life. I fucking told you as much yesterday and you didn't care then—"

"Fine," I said. "Ask me a question."

"What?"

"A better question than 'what'. Here, I'll start. Have you ever been married?" Jacob raised his eyebrows, unsure of my motives. I just waited, counting to twenty in my mind so my annoyance could have a chance to ebb.

"Um, no," he said finally. "I was engaged for a while."

"When was this?"

"Well, I was twenty-seven so that would make it eight years ago. Her name was Amy. She lived on the rez. We were together for five years after I graduated from college."

"That sounds serious. Did you love her?" I tried not to sound wistful, but Jacob looked at me sharply so I must have sounded _something_.

"Yeah, I loved her," he said. "You don't stay with someone for five years if you don't love them."

"Some people do."

"Well, I didn't. We got engaged and set a date and sent out invitations and everything."

"So what happened?"

"I just…didn't want to be married. I don't know, maybe I fell out of love. Planning the wedding was a real bitch and we stopped really liking each other and I just…it wasn't what I wanted. I had to send back all these stupid ass blenders and towels and shit I never wanted in the first place. Two years after we broke up, people were still asking about her." He looked down at his feet. I didn't know how to comfort him; a kiss at a moment like this seemed too intimate. I stretched my leg out and put my bare foot over his bare foot.

"Your turn," I said gently.

"Do you have any pets?"

I shook my head. "I used to want a dog but my parents wouldn't let me get the kind I wanted."

"What kind is that?"

"I don't know, something big and goofy. A Great Dane or a greyhound or a Borzoi or something. They wanted me to get something yappy and small. I like big dogs." Marx, the smaller of the two, took this opportunity to come and wrap himself around my legs, almost knocking me over. I flailed for Jacob's hand to save myself. He laughed and nudged Marx away from me. "And big men, apparently," I noted.

"Really? So you have a type?"

"Well, I never used to think so. My last boyfriend was a real skinny fucker. Pretty good dick, but he had no idea what to do with it. The one before that was a soccer player, and they tend to be reedy."

"Do you usually date older men?" Jacob asked curiously.

"Well," I said thoughtfully, "Let's see. I dated the same guy my freshman and sophomore years in highschool and he was in my grade. After that I dated a senior for a while, and then there was Professor Karlov…"

"Wait, was this while you were still in school?" I nodded. "You dated a _teacher_?"

"Why so shocked? Anyway, I didn't date him, I just blew him." Jacob looked like he didn't know whether to freak out or run away. "I was sixteen then and he was probably…maybe in his early twenties? He wasn't that old. And he had a yummy accent. He wasn't actually _my_ teacher, he just taught at my school."

"What happened to him?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was he fired?"

"Not as far as I know. I didn't tell anyone. And before you get all weepy over my poor lost innocence I should mention that I basically cornered him. It was almost summer vacation and I was just like, really horny and pretty confused and I had this crush on him…"

"Yeah, but he was the adult," Jacob insisted. "It's on the grownup to—"

"You really wanna know how it played out?" I interrupted him. "He had no idea who I even _was_. I just wandered into his office after school when everyone was gone. He didn't even look up from the papers he was grading." I remembered it well. It was one of the first really risky things I'd ever done. "It was right after Grandpa Charlie died and I was a huge fucking mess, but I wasn't crying or making a scene or anything. I just brought him some coffee and he took it without even looking at me, so I took my shirt off."

"_What_?"

"I took my shirt off and oh, _then_ he looked at me. Couldn't take his fucking eyes off of me. He tried to make me leave, but he didn't try very hard. And then I gave him a blow job and put my shirt back on and left. It only took about ten minutes from beginning to end."

Jacob just stood there in stunned silence.

"Come on," I said, "Does this really surprise you about me? I practically attacked you after speaking to you for all of twenty minutes. I am bored as shit of being a good little girl. I want to do something even remotely fun, even remotely on my terms. I hated every part of my life living with my stupid fucking parents. They're such snobs and they keep trying to make me into a little Bella. I am not anything like her. If you were in love with her, which I assume you were because everyone in this town was, you'd better get it into your head right now that I am _nothing like her_."

"I never thought you were," he said loudly. "I don't even know your mom."

"You were into her," I snapped. "Don't even bother to say you weren't. You saw me in that bar, you fucking _hoped_ I was her. Trust me, it's a familiar sensation." I didn't know how this had escalated so fast. It was probably my fault.

"Yeah, I had a crush on her…_when I was fourteen_! Every fourteen year old male has a crush on everyone. This is not breaking news! And you know what, if it was gonna bother you so much why the hell were you flirting with me like that in the first place?"

"You asshole, don't you even dare turn this on me. I can flirt with whoever the fuck I want. Doesn't mean you have to use me as a proxy for Bella Fucking Swan."

"Dude," shouted Jacob, "I didn't even know you were in town, and if I had, I never would have made a move on you, because you're _half my fucking age_!"

"Who cares? You didn't mind when you were drilling my brains out on the couch just now. You don't get to have it both ways. You don't get to fuck me and then pretend to be all noble and conflicted. Make up your fucking mind. Take some responsibility."

"You know what? Fine. Point taken. I will no longer experience more than one feeling at a time, since that obviously offends you so much, and you can go jerk some other poor asshole around. See you around." He stalked off into the bathroom and slammed the door.

I pushed past Wolf and Marx, who were barking excitedly at me, and got into my car. I felt like puking, but all I'd had this morning was a cup of tea and it had long since vacated my stomach. I had serious road rage all the way to work. My shirt was unwearable, torn in two places and not even close to concealing the bruise Jacob's hand had left on my collarbone. I had to pin my pants together and my hair was still a complete mess from the couch.

Kate, my manager, gasped when she saw me. "Goodness, Carlie, did you get mugged or something?"

"No," I said glumly. "Fight with my boyfriend."

"Well, did you report the bastard?"

"He just doesn't know his own strength," I said, trying to look meek. In fact, even through my anger I was reliving that half-hour, covertly pressing my purse strap over my bruise so it would twinge. I loved bruises. Little scratch-n-feel souvenirs.

"You have to think of the next woman!" Kate exclaimed.

"Kate, can we please just drop this? I'm really tired, I don't want to get into this right now." Kate bit her lip and nodded. I put my B&N polo shirt on over my ripped-up undershirt and touched up my makeup, ran a comb through my hair.

Kate was extra sweet to me that morning. I could see her wanting to ask me more about it, but I was evasive. Halfway through my shift, I heard a familiar male voice.

"Hey there, stranger." It was Eric, the cute bartender. I'd seen him several times over the last month. I'd never had to pay for a drink when he was behind the bar. I wondered what he wanted me to do to repay him. He'd sort of slipped my mind after I ran into Jacob at Leah's barbecue.

"Hi, Eric!" I said brightly. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious?" he said. "I'm looking for shoes." I laughed prettily at his dumb joke, reached out and touched his arm. His eyes lit up. "I, I haven't seen you in a few days."

"Yeah, I've been drinking alone, then sobbing into my pillow. It's awesome, you should try it." He looked confused.

"Well, I was thinking maybe we could get together soon…maybe you could buy me a drink for once." I suspected he'd been practicing that line.

"Oh, Eric, how sweet! I'd like that."

"You free Friday?" I nodded. "Let me get your number, I'll call you." I entered my number into his phone and kissed him on the cheek. He and his cute butt walked away with gusto.

Kate stopped to talk to me before I clocked out. "I hope you know, hon, you can always talk to me. I'm not just your boss, I could be a good resource for you, if you ever got into trouble." I probably shouldn't have let her go on believing that I was a victim of domestic abuse, but it seemed a little late to correct her.

"Thanks, Kate," I said. "I know that."


	3. Chapter 3

Eric and I made plans to get Italian food at a restaurant in Port Angeles. We would eat pasta and drink red wine over candlelight. He would drive me home and offer to walk me in, and I would probably say yes.

I didn't really see the point. I wouldn't be thinking of him at all.

Friday afternoon, I drove out to the rez. I hadn't spoken to Jacob in four days, hadn't seen him, hadn't heard Leah talk about him. We'd never even exchanged numbers, because we weren't dating.

"Where's Jacob?" I asked the four boots sticking out from under cars at Black Auto. Shawn emerged.

"He's in the office. Hey," he said as I started for the office, "You don't want to go in there, he's in a _black_ mood." He and Joe snickered. I ignored them and barged in without knocking. Jacob was on the phone, ordering a bunch of shit for the garage. As soon as he saw me, he rushed to the end of the conversation and hung up.

"What are you doing here?" he asked warily.

"I need a favor." Jacob swiftly crossed the room, closed the door and shot the bolt.

"What?"

"I have a date in three hours." Jacob rolled his eyes.

"Awesome. You want me to drive you there? Or hey, maybe you want to insult me before you go, work off some steam."

"Close." I took a step toward him. "Very close." He stepped back.

"Dammit, Nessie, don't fuck with me right now. I'm at work. I'm an adult. I cannot just take time out of my life to deal with your shit. Go on your date, sleep with your stupid guy and leave me alone." He tried to pick the phone back up but I slammed it down in the charger so hard it _dinged_. "Okay, now you're just being childish."

"So? That's what I am to you anyway. Might as well act the part."

"Did you really just come here to fight with me?"

"Does that not work for you?"

He raked his hands through his hair and sent the rubber band shooting across the room, a fact he didn't even notice. "Nessie, maybe we should exchange numbers so that we can just fight over the phone. That way you don't have to come all the way out here."

"I wanted to fight with you in person." I stepped closer. He tried to step back again but he hit the wall. "I'm going on this date and I want something good to take with me, so when Eric tells a lame joke he thinks is funny, I'll have something to smile about. Can you give me anything good, Jacob?" I glanced down at the hard-on he was trying to suavely shift out of view. "Oh, that'll do nicely."

"That's just a…biological reaction," he said defensively. "I'm not saying yes to you." I took one more step and I was close enough to feel the heat rising off him, smell the grease and sweat and pheromones that made me want to suck him like a lollipop.

"I know very well what that is," I said, and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressed my pelvis against his.

He whimpered. "Please don't." I ran my fingers up through his hair, leaned forward and smelled his neck, grazed my teeth over his ears.

"You don't mean that," I said reassuringly.

"Please…"

"Please what?"

"You're making this very hard for me."

"I can tell." I lifted the hem of the knee-length skirt I was wearing—nothing if not prepared—and pressed the bare skin of my thigh against his hand. His will broke then, and he flipped me around and pushed me facedown onto his desk.

Wordlessly he pulled my panties down my legs, reached around me and felt how damp I was. He had the most enormous hands.

"Your hands are like sex toys," I said.

"Shut up and let's use each other," he said.

Facing away, I smiled triumphantly.

He searched through a drawer until he found a box of condoms.

"You keep condoms at work?" I asked him. "Pervert." He rolled it on, grabbed my ass hard, and pushed in. I let out a low yelp at the sensation, which was sharp and quick and heady. "Your cock is a miracle," I told him breathlessly. He leaned forward and hooked his left arm around me, held me flush against me so my back was pressing his front. With his right arm he reached down and rubbed the whole palm of his callused hand against my clit. My breathing became shallow. "Oh, god," I said, "Oh sweet zombie Jesus."

I felt the orgasm building quickly. Orgasm for me was always largely a matter of attitude, and Jacob had an uncanny ability to tap into whatever fantasy was topmost in my mind. Right now, he was kind of hate-fucking me, and I was kind of loving it.

"Mm, ah," I said. Oh g—oh, shit, Jake, oh shit—" I bit the inside of my cheek and scrunched my eyes shut and balled up my fists; unexpectedly, Jacob whacked me hard on my right butt cheek and then _there_ it was, the orgasm that would carry me through this evening. Jacob clenched me even tighter and came sixty seconds later, as silently as I had. I only knew he was done because he let go of my ass and my torso and splayed his hands out over the desk, with me between them.

He whispered in my ear, "Are you really going on that date?" I nodded solemnly. "Then I want you to spend the whole time thinking about me."

"No fear. I think about you most of the time anyway."

He pulled out and wrapped the used condom carefully in Kleenex before tossing it in the trash. I pulled my panties back up, straightened my skirt, turned to him.

"Put your big hairy bear arms around me," I said. He laughed and pulled me close. I kissed his mouth, his nose, his eyelids. His breathing became deep and slow.

"You may be my favorite person in the world," he said contentedly, and kissed the side of my face. "But I can't really figure out what you want."

"Then you seem to be faking it awfully well. And anyway, I always tell you what I want."

"Oh, by the way, I left a huge bruise on your ass," he threw in. "If your date asks you where you got it from, you can just tell him your big scary handsome boyfriend gave it to you."

"So you're my boyfriend, now?"

"Not necessarily, but he doesn't need to know that. Why, are you looking for a boyfriend?"

"Yes, but he's invisible so I don't think I'm going to find him. And how have you fared with your girlfriend?" Jacob's arms tightened.

"Well, we came to the mutual agreement that a long-term relationship was unlikely. We were both looking for very different things."

"Was she looking for a guy who wasn't knocking boots with another woman?"

"That was one of her criteria, yes. As it turns out."

"And you couldn't even do that. Shame on you, Jacob Black." I kissed his cheek and started for the door.

"Let me know how it goes," he called out as I closed the door behind me. Shawn was trying not to look like he was watching me leave,

"You were right," I said over my shoulder, "He _was_ in a terrible mood."

I showered and dressed my very cutest for my date, in a darling Mod dress and brightly-colored tights. Eric picked me up at my house and drove us out to Port Angeles, where he'd gotten reservations at a decent Italian restaurant. We talked about our lives and other boring crap like that. I didn't tell him any of what I'd told Jacob, because that shit was private.

I ordered a mid-priced steak, still mooing.

Eric said, "I love a woman who's not afraid to eat." I nearly gagged on my meat. Did people really _say_ that?

"Tell me about yourself," he said with a charming smile.

"Oh, there's really very little to tell."

"Did you go to college?"

"No. I don't know if I ever want to, either. I mean, I have time, I only left high school a year ago…"

"Really?" Eric looked surprised. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

"Oh. I…didn't know that. I thought you looked older…"

"Yeah, I get that a lot. I like to think I have an old spirit."

"Yes?"

"An old, rheumatic spirit. Anyway, I'm not feeling college right now. How 'bout you?"

"Yeah, I went to Wash State. Biology. I'm going to be a teacher," he said proudly.

"How nice! I can really see you molding the minds of tomorrow."

"Yeah, education is really my passion," he said enthusiastically, leaning forward. I couldn't tell if it was a line or not but I thought of _Data Entry is My Passion_ and smiled. "I want to teach high-school biology. That was what really got me through a hard time in my life, was my biology class."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, well, my father died when I was sixteen and my Biology teacher was really there for me. It was my favorite subject."

"I'm sorry to hear that. My grandfather died when I was fifteen. He raised me, really."

"I'm so sorry." Eric put a hand on my hand and looked at me tenderly.

"You may have heard of him. He was Chief Swan."

"Oh my god, really? Of course I knew him, everyone in Forks knew him. He was a really great guy." I nodded. "It was a real tragedy," he added. I nodded again. "I didn't even know he had a family."

"Everyone has a family."

Eric looked awkward. "Of course, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"It's okay. I lived with him till I was four and then I moved in with my parents. He still came to see us every year though, until it happened."

"I know when my dad died, I just really lost it. I threw myself into school, stopped talking to everyone…"

"Yeah…" I didn't want to sit here and talk about dead guys all night; why did this happen so often? "So, why are you bartending instead of teaching high school?"

"Well, I'm working on my Master's degree right now. Bartending just pays the tuition."

"Plus you get to hit on cute girls."

"A definite perk." Our waitress came by with a dessert menu, which we declined. Eric was looking excited and happy: he thought the date had gone well.

We spent the drive back to my house talking about music. I jacked my iPod into his car and we sang along to Abba the whole way. Eric pulled into my driveway and parked the car.

"So, this is your house?" he asked in a transparent bid to get invited in.

"Yeah," I said. "I should probably go now. The neighbors, and all…"

Eric looked around. Charlie's house had a lot of room on either side, and none of the other houses on the street had lights on.

"The neighbors?"

I unbuckled my seat belt and sidled over to him, put my hand in his lap. "They would talk." He swallowed.

"They would?" I ran my hand across his package and felt it harden.

"Oh, yes. You know how gossipy Forks is." I unzipped his pants, tooth by tooth. "There would be rumors…I would get looks in the street." His breathing became labored, probably because I had liberated his dick and was slowly stroking it. I couldn't help comparing it with Jacob's. It was narrow and straight, acceptably long, but I liked Jacob's more because it could hurt me if it wanted to. Eric's dick couldn't hurt a fly. I looked him in the eye with my mind full of Jacob and gave him a smile full of teeth.

"That feels really good, Carlie," he said huskily. "Can I—"

"No, you can't." I stroked harder, using both hands and a fair amount of saliva as lube. It didn't take very long for him to finish. I caught the spurt of semen in my hands and looked around for something to wipe it on.

"Here," said Eric, handing me a travel pack of tissues. "That was…really nice of you."

"I'm a nice girl."

"Can I call you?"

"Sure." I kissed him on the cheek and hopped out of the car. He backed out of the driveway and drove away, and I didn't even go into my house, just climbed into my car and drove out to the reservation. It was only twelve; the night was young.

Jacob opened his door after I pounded on it for about five minutes. He'd obviously just gotten out of the shower; his hair was all wet and sexy, and his pecs were all wet and sexy, and his…well, every part of him was wet and sexy. He looked incredibly happy and a little bit smug to see me.

"Have you heard the Good News?" I asked him perkily before jumping into his arms and wrapping my legs around his waist. He backed inside and kicked the door shut behind us.

"How was your date?" he asked, sitting down on the couch with me still wrapped around him.

"Mmm, it was good. I had steak."

"And what did he have?"

"He had chicken, and a handjob." Jacob halted the expedition his mouth was making into my cleavage. "Oh, don't worry. I was thinking about you the whole time, just like you asked me to." He laughed and resumed his explorations. "And I didn't kiss him on the lips," I added.

"Good. Your lips are mine. All of them." He curled one hand up between my legs and encountered my stockings. "What the hell is this?"

"Tights. It's cold out there!"

"I hate them," he said adamantly.

"What am I supposed to do, go around naked at night in the middle of winter? You want to fuck a dead girl?"

"Mmmm," he hummed. "Depends on the girl." He rooted around until he found the waistband of my stockings and tugged. I heard a rip, and winced.

"You owe me so many clothes, Jacob Black."

"You can take it out of me in labor," he said. "I'll fix your car for you, and you just keep letting me destroy your clothing."

"My car doesn't need fixing." I ran my hands over his glorious chest-muscles, through that little tuft of hair on his sternum, down his solar plexus. His breathing quickened and he suddenly lost a great deal of playfulness. He yanked my dress over my head—luckily it was stretchy enough to take the abuse, because I _liked_ this dress—and rolled my nipples between his fingers. I cleared my ruined tights out of the way and pulled his cock out of his damp underwear, rubbing it against my clit.

"Oh, god," he moaned, "You are some kind of a fucking monster, you know that?"

"Duh," I said. "Hey, do you have anything?"

"What a condom? They're over—"

"No, a disease. I don't have one and I don't want to get one."

"No, I don't have an STD."

"Good." I pressed my pussy onto his dick and felt him suck in his breath.

"Jesus, Ness, I've still got live ammo in there—"

"Relax," I said, "I'm on the pill. And my period."

"Hey, would you look at that," he said, looking down at the join between us. "So you are."

I reached down and began rubbing myself while Jacob grabbed me by the ass and raised me up, then down, up and down. I spread my legs even further apart, took him in so deep my whole pussy grated against his pubic hair. That felt so good I did it some more.

"Shit, you feel amazing," he said raspily. "Good god, you're just…"

"Jake, I'm about to come," I panted. "You can come in me, if you want."

Then I stopped trying to talk, because I was clenching my thigh muscles and making a garbled _nngk_ sound and climaxing hard.

As soon as I pulled my hand away from my crotch, Jacob clutched me against him and thrust faster; about eight seconds later he yelled, "_Shiiit_, Nessie—" and then sank back into the couch cushions with me still trapped against his chest, panting.

"I completely adore you," I said into his neck.

"Mmm hmmm."

"My legs hurt." In answer, Jacob slid sideways until he was lying full-length on the couch, with me on top and still attached. "That's better." My skin was cooling but he was so warm, and his arms made good blankets. I twined my legs around his, toasted my feet under his calves.

"I didn't tell my date anything about myself. Then he would know I'm not a very good person."

"You're a good person, Ness."

"That's not true. But you're the only one I want to tell that to. I don't want anybody to know me but you."

"That sounds healthy."

"I don't care. Jake, you're my favorite person in the entire world, too." His eyes slid closed and he smiled sleepily at me, hugged me closer. I laid my head down on his shoulder and the deep rise and fall of his chest lulled me to sleep almost at once.

When I woke up, I was still lying on top of Jake, but at some point in the night he'd pulled a blanket off the back of the couch to cover us. At least two of my major limbs were asleep. I pulled myself up. Jacob whimpered in his sleep as my weight left him and he rolled over, showing off his completely glorious ass gleaming in the orange light of sunrise.

I roamed through his house until I found the bathroom. The bathtub was a mess, so I sprayed it with cleaner and started scrubbing. When every last flake of grime and soap residue had been rinsed down the drain, I drew myself a bath. Before I was done, I smelled eggs and bacon cooking. I stepped out of the red-tinged water, wrapped a towel around my hair and walked, dripping, into the kitchen, where Jacob was heartily singing _Heat of the Moment_ out of tune.

"Morning, pretty girl!" he said. "You're naked and wet!"

"I know," I said. "Do you have any tampons? I'm all bleedy."

"No luck, sorry," he said. "There might be some ancient pads in the upstairs bathroom from when Becca lived here."

"Okay. Be right back." I rummaged around and finally found some blood-stoppers. I went into Jacob's room and searched his top drawer for a pair of briefs that might be small enough to fit me. Jacob was massive, of course, but he had a damn tight little ass.

When I reappeared in the kitchen I was wearing his underwear with a pad stuck in.

"Hot," he commented.

"Right?"

"Here." He handed me a plate. "I wish I had sausage. I would love to watch you eat sausage right now."

"I still can," I suggested.

"Gulp," said Jacob.

"That's the idea." I knelt in front of him.

"You don't have to do this," he said a little frantically, trying to cover his junk.

"Don't you want me to? I think your dick wants me to, anyway. Just look at it."

"I haven't had a chance to shower yet, you don't have to—_ohsweetjesus_." I tasted rusty blood and the slightly acidic taste of _me_ that was still on his dick. Jacob scrabbled wildly for something to hold onto and slammed his hand down on the kitchen table, sending silverware flying. Deep-throating this man was completely out of the question unless I wanted to damage a kidney, so I twisted my hands around the base of his cock and sucked away at the tip. Jacob let out a guttural cry, threw his head back and came violently in my mouth. I swallowed before the taste of semen had a chance to register with my taste buds and stood up.

"I'm so sorry, Ness," he said when he could speak again. "I meant to warn you so you could get out of the way—"

"Whatever," I said carelessly, "I'm just gonna chase it with orange juice and bacon anyway." I kissed him and sat down at the table, then tucked in to my breakfast with relish.

Kate looked at me anxiously at my next shift, but there were no fresh visible bruises and I was in high spirits.

"How you doing, hon?" she asked me cautiously.

"Happy as houses," I sang. "My boyfriend and I cleared up our little disagreement. Everything's going to be fine." She looked even more anxious at this, but said nothing.

After I got back from my lunch break, I started on children's books. The kids' books section was a little nook in one corner of the store, and it was my favorite area, with big plastic mushrooms and flowers to sit on. I picked out _In the Night Kitchen_ and read it while I pretended to be restocking books.

I had just gotten to the part where you see his tiny baby penis when I heard an ostentatious throat-clearing behind me. I turned slowly around and looked up. A vaguely familiar black-haired woman was standing above me, looking purposeful. I almost didn't recognize her without Jacob's arm around her shoulder. I stood up from my tiny stool and raised an eyebrow.

"Are you Renesmee?" she spat. She was real pretty in person, all long-haired and curvy.

I tapped one fingernail to my nametag. "Don't you know how to read? Big girl like you?"

"You're a bitch, Renesmee, and your name is retarded." I smiled bashfully.

"Oh, go on."

"Are you fucking insane?" she asked me. She was practically spitting venom, but it was quietly contained venom. Kate, surfing the internet on her iPhone at the manager's kiosk, didn't look up.

"I don't know," I said thoughtfully. "But you know who you could ask?" She narrowed her eyes. "I bet Jacob Black would know. You ever met the guy?"

"One more word out of your slutty bitch mouth and I'm gonna tear your eyes out," she said.

"No. Don't do that," I said in a bored monotone.

"What are you, like fifteen?"

"Twelve, actually." I twisted a strand of golden-brown hair around one finger and pushed out my lower lip. "Your boyfriend's going to jail," I said in a baby voice.

"You little—" She lashed out with one hand and slapped me across the face. My head whipped around and I put a hand to my cheek. It was an okay slap, not great. There would probably be a mark but no broken blood vessels.

"Oh, my," I said, "Did you learn that from him, or did he learn it from you?"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" She sounded almost afraid.

"Look, darling," I said in a Wise Elder voice, "I understand that you must be upset, but it wasn't very decent of you to come here to my place of work." I gestured around at the colorful books on the shelves. "This is a land of joy, not anger."

"You are a fucking bitchbag," she said acidly. "And it takes a real fucking skank to go after someone with a girlfriend already. You're just a desperate little whore." She crossed her arms over her chest and looked me up and down once, like that settled it.

"_I'm_ desperate? Shall I show you the bruises from where Jake slammed me against a tree and fucked me til I bled?" I said this with no particular agitation. She was just some woman who hated me; I didn't even see how it was my concern. "Or, hey, see this hole?" I stuck my finger through a tear in the underarm of my B&N polo shirt. "Your boyfriend just couldn't wait to get it off me. Honey, your face is all red. Are you about to cry?"

She lashed out at me again but I sidestepped her. "You don't come to my job and try to start shit. You wanna be mad at someone, be mad at him. I don't even know you." I picked up my box of kids' books and walked toward the manager's station. As I passed, she reached out and yanked my hair.

"Ow!" I yelled.

"What is going on over here?" Kate demanded, hustling over.

"Ask the skank," said Ex as she stormed out. "I'm just leaving."

When she was gone, Kate turned to me and said severely, "Just what was that about?"

"I don't know. That was just some angry chick. She pulled me hair, did you see that? Shit man, that still hurts."

"You know I can't have this kind of behavior on the floor. Does this have something to do with that boyfriend of yours?" she asked pointedly. I pursed my lips and looked at my feet.

"I think she was his ex. I've never even met her before. Please don't fire me!" I looked up at Kate, my eyes swimming beatifically.

"Renesmee, you're not fired, but I need you to try to bring a more professional attitude with you to work. You can't keep bringing in your problems from outside. It's really not good for sales."

"I'm sorry. I swear I never even met her before."

"Okay, honey. You know, maybe you'd better just cut out early, you only have an hour left on the clock and we're not busy. Go get some rest, maybe call your mother." I nodded and turned to go. "Renesmee, I see you like this and…you deserve better than him. Whoever he is."

"Thanks, Kate."

When I got to the breakroom to collect my purse, I saw that I'd missed a call and a text from Leah. The text read, _Hey girl, meet me for lunch_?

I texted her back, _Just got off work. Where are you_?

_Home now. Come drink w/me._

Forty-five minutes later I was sitting at Leah's kitchen table while she mixed up gin-and-tonics.

"So, where'd you get the shiner?" she asked me.

"It's hardly a shiner, Leah," I said, touching my cheek. "Jake's psycho ex smacked me at work today. The mark'll be gone in an hour."

"Are you fucking serious? Which ex?"

"Um, I didn't quite catch her name. The most recent one, I think. Lovely woman."

"Nesmee, goddammit," Leah said, plonking my drink in front of me. "Why the hell did you have to get in a fight with _Ruth_, of all people? She's Sam's cousin, now I'm gonna have to deal with the shitstorm."

"Hey, she came up to me. I didn't touch her."

"I bet you _talked_ to her. You can never just keep your mouth shut, can you?"

"Leah, I don't even know the woman! And Jake said they weren't serious, anyway. I didn't realize she would take it so hard."

"Well, they weren't like, _serious_ serious, but they were friends for a long time before they started dating. At their age, you don't date just to date anymore. She probably thought it was, you know, monogamous. You could have at least acted sorry."

"Were they really into each other? You know, before I came?" Leah considered.

"Not exactly. I mean, I kind of thought they were just fuck buddies, but it looked like they were heading toward something a little more…Ugh, Ness, why are you doing this? Seriously. Why? You are a super hot cool chick. It's not like you can't find a boyfriend your own age."

"I don't want a boyfriend my own age. I want Jake." I took a gulp of my drink. "I don't even know…I mean, I know why I'm attracted to him, obviously. Like, he's really hot and that's, that's a good thing, but I just can't seem to control myself around him. It's kind of crazy. I just go really crazy. I have never ever felt like this before, not even when I had sex with that guy from Band of Horses."

"Are you in love with him?" I looked at Leah sharply.

"Ask me again in three months. Too soon to tell."

"You always rush everything."

"Not everything," I said.

"You're gonna get hurt."

"I already hurt."


	4. Chapter 4

My mother called my cell phone while I was at the library. I called her back on my way home, half listening to her and half paying attention to the road.

"Hey, baby!" she burbled.

"Hey, Mom. What's up?"

"Oh, not much, Beth was just down to see us! I had some very nice friends who wanted to see her, but—"

"Ugh, Mom, are you still trying to turn Beth straight? You do know it's an incurable condition, right? Like, she just likes pussy better."

"Language, Renesmee Carlie Cullen. So, how are you liking Forks now that you've settled in?"

"It's fine. I work at a bookstore. And the library. I get by."

"Baby, you know your dad and I would just really love it if you would think about applying to some colleges. You're really going to wish you had that degree one of these days. It's getting harder to find a job. Or you could move back to Cali and maybe meet some people, do some networking—"

"Yeah, cool. I'm uh, not actually going to do that right now. I don't know, maybe I'll do online classes or something."

"Oh, Carlie, no one takes online degrees seriously."

"Not an online degree, Mom, online classes. From a real college. You know what, never mind. It doesn't matter. Let's talk about something else."

"Beth mentioned that you might have met someone." _Thanks a lot, Beth_.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Well, tell me all about him!" she squealed. It was completely gross to hear a thirty-seven year old woman acting like a teenager.

"Um, he's really…cool."

"Oh, don't be stingy, honey. What's his name? What does he do?"

"Oh, he's a mechanic." There was a dead silence. "Mom, you there?"

"A _mechanic_?"

"Yeah. He's really cool. College-educated, don't worry about that. He owns his own shop."

"Well, I guess that's pretty good for a young man…" my mother faltered.

"Yeah. He's…he's really great."

"Well, is it serious?"

"No," I lied. "Just something to pass the time."

My mother breathed a sigh of relief.

One Saturday late in November I drove out to Leah's house, helped her pack a shit ton of food and blankets, and went to First Beach with her. There her husband and the other enormous handsome males constructed a bonfire. The weather was too cold for shorts by a long shot, but the fire was so big and hot we could practically dance naked in its radiant circle. Jake was already at the beach when we arrived. He bounded over to me and began taking things out of my arms. I thought he meant to carry them over to the fire, but instead he dropped them and picked me up instead, and began nuzzling my neck. I giggled, the way I always did when he acted like this, all excited and happy and silly. Marx and Wolf ran up and barked wildly at me.

"Man, my dogs like you more'n they like me."

"I've been training them to expect treats from me," I explained. "Sit, Wolf. Sit. Sit, dammit!" Wolf stood and stared at me expectantly, his tongue hanging out. "Oh, all right," I said, thrusting a piece of hot dog into his mouth. "Sit, Marx." Marx flopped over at my feet and wriggled around so I could rub his belly.

"Do I get a treat?" Jacob asked. In response I grabbed his hand and pulled him around to the back end of the car, where we were partially hidden from the people on the beach. "What're you do—_oh_," he said, as I snaked my hand into his pants. "There are…everyone's right over…oh god…" I didn't let him last long. I flung my handful of semen out into the woods and wiped the rest in his stomach hair, under his sweatshirt.

"You can return the favor later," I whispered.

"Yo, where are those hot dogs?" Sam yelled from the fireside. I gathered my fallen armload of foodstuffs and trotted over to the fire.

Two hours later, everyone was pretty well inebriated. Embry suggested a game of _Never Have I Ever_.

"Never have I ever…" Embry began "…been arrested." Quil and I both took sips of our beers, to cheering.

"Never have I ever gone cliff-diving," said Leah. Pretty much all the males took a drink. So did I.

"Never have I ever grabbed an electric fence," said Sam. I took a drink.

Quil said, "Never have I ever gotten in a fight with a cop." Leah, Sam and I all drank.

"Never have I ever…" said Claire "…desecrated a flag." Almost everyone, including me, took a drink.

"Never have I ever taken a piss in public," said Kim. Again, the guys and I all took a drink. I began to get looks.

"Never have I ever dropped acid," said Jared. I took a drink.

"Okay, you do know how to play the game, right Nesmee?" asked Sam. "You only drink if you _have_ done it."

"Do I have to take a drink for _every_ time I've dropped acid?" I asked Sam. "Or can I just stick with one?" Everyone laughed.

"Damn," said Embry, "I can't wait till it's your turn."

Paul Lahote said, "Never have I ever taken a shit in public." I drank. "Aw man, seriously?"

"Yeah," I said. "I took a crap on the hood of my dad's car when I was thirteen. When he came back out from his rehearsal, he was all grossed out, had no idea who could hate him that much. It was amazing." I sighed nostalgically.

"Never have I ever desecrated the bible," said Seth angelically. I drank. It was my turn. I racked my brains while everyone looked at me expectantly.

"Um…never have I ever…smuggled coke into another country in my ass." Neither had anyone else, so I still had to take a drink.

Jake said, "Never have I ever had a threesome." I glared at him, which only made him laugh; then, along with a very embarrassed-looking Claire and Quil, I took a drink. There was open laughter and predictable teasing.

"Never have I ever had a foursome," said Embry, looking at me. Everyone watched while I took a drink.

"Fivesome?" asked Leah. I drank.

"Shit man," said Sam. "How high up does that go?" I wrinkled my nose.

"Um, I think probably…maybe a dozen or so?" Jake stared at me, open-mouthed. "I mean, you stop adding '-some' to the end after five, after that I think it counts as an orgy." I'd been taking tiny sips, because I always lost at this game otherwise.

"Well, I've never had sex on film," said Quil. Leah and Sam took drinks. Everyone stared at me.

"Not film!" I said defensively, hands raised. "Digital."

"A mere technicality!" said Leah. "Drink, woman!" I drank.

Claire said, "I've never cheated on a significant other." She was still sober enough to be careful with her wording. Jake, Embry, Paul and I all drank.

"Never have I ever hooked up with a teacher," said Kim, who worked at a school on the reservation. Paul, Embry and I drank.

"Never have I been cheated on…as far as I know," said Quil. Nearly everyone drank to this one.

"Never have I ever punched a stranger," said Jared. Most of the males, plus Leah and I, took a drink.

Paul said he'd never had sex in public. Kim, Jared and I all drank. I raised my eyebrows at Jake, and he reluctantly took a drink too, to general amusement.

Seth claimed never to have been frisked. Claire, Paul and I drank.

"I've never kicked a puppy," I said sternly. Nobody took a drink, which meant I had to.

"I've never been pushed out of a moving vehicle," said Jake. I drank.

"Man," said Embry. "Now I just feel bad for Nessie." I laughed bitterly. "If you have to take a drink every time, does that mean you've won or you've lost?"

"Means you've _lived_, genius!" said Sam.

"I can't believe you've done all that stuff," said Claire. "That's crazy! When were you arrested?"

"After I got caught peeing in public and then punched a strange cop in the face," I said. "I was going through a bad decade." I hiccupped. I was drunker than everyone else, but I handled booze all right and I could still follow what was going on.

Leah called a ceasefire in deference to my liver and everyone started reminiscing about all the crazy shit they'd done. Jake quietly pulled me away from the circle and carried me to his car. He sat down in the backseat and I lay next to him, my head in his lap. I was in the talkative, morbid stage.

"I had this boyfriend, Zach, he was this real asshole. He wanted me to give him road head and I wouldn't, so he actually pushed me out of his car and drove off. I mean, it wasn't moving fast or anything, but I still banged up my legs pretty bad." Jacob stroked my hair and made soothing noises.

"He wasn't the one I cheated on, though. I cheated on my boyfriend senior year. I went to this amazing concert in L.A. and I lied my way backstage and then I had sex with the bassist from Band of Horses. I really wanted to do it with the lead guitarist but he was with someone prettier, but then everyone started doing all this coke and it just became this huge thing where everyone was having sex with everyone. It was the first time I tried coke, you know?"

"I didn't know that." There was no judgment in Jacob's voice. Why wasn't he judging me? Maybe he was saving it up.

"After Grandpa Charlie kicked it, my mom wanted me to sell his house. She got really mean about it, threatened me, the whole nine yards. She said if I didn't sell the house she and Edward were gonna cut off my inheritance. So I stole her engagement ring and sold it for sixty bucks at a pawn shop. It was an heirloom, too. Been in the family a looooong time."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Because I hate her," I said. "Obviously. I don't even remember what I did with the money. I probably bought weed or something. I spent a lot of time stoned, the year after Grandpa Charlie died. Mom kept saying she didn't know why I was so upset about it, it's not like he was _my_ father." Jake went on playing with my hair, braiding it, unbraiding it, letting strands of it fall through his fingers. "Do you really think I'm too young for you?" I asked him, struggling to keep my voice steady.

"Not anymore," said Jake. "I think you're exactly right."

"That's not true," I said. A tear squeezed out of one eye, but I the dark Jacob didn't see it. "I'm a real fuckup. I've done some terrible things. I got pregnant when I was fifteen, did I tell you that?"

"No, you didn't."

"My boyfriend didn't want to use a condom and I didn't know how to make him wear one, and we tried pulling out for a while but that doesn't actually work. I didn't tell my mom, I had to go to Planned Parenthood all alone. My boyfriend didn't even come with me."

"I'm so sorry, Ness," Jacob said, his voice low and aching. "That must have been horrible."

"Not as horrible as the second time," I said. "I finally got him to start using condoms and one broke anyway. I hate my body. It keeps trying to make me be pregnant. My mom is all, '_I didn't abort you, so you can't be pro-choice!_'" I mimicked Bella's faint, prissy voice. "She should have, though. She's not even my mother. She's just a woman I used to live with. She didn't want me, and she didn't want to have to make a hard choice. Dad didn't want me. No one, no one…Only Grandpa Charlie wants me." I slipped into the present tense and then cringed as I remembered Grandpa Charlie was dead, dead, _dead_.

"Don't say that, Nessie," Jacob begged. "I want you."

"Then I haven't told you enough horrible things yet," I insisted. "This one time, I—" Jacob stopped me with a kiss, desperate and intense. I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him back, reveling in the roughness of it. I traced the lines on his face with my fingertips: laugh lines, some shallow horizontal ones in the forehead, two little lines between his eyebrows that only came out when he was angry. I didn't have a single wrinkle anywhere on my body. Not yet.

"I wish I were ugly," I said.

"Why?"

"Then I'd match my insides!" I began to laugh maniacally. Jacob rocked me in his arms, trying to soothe me.

"Ness, you're beautiful," he said gently. "All of you, even your insides. You've been systematically screwed over until you started to believe you had it coming, but you don't. You don't deserve this shit."

"Shit, shit, shit," I sang to the tune of _All You Need is Love_. "All you need is shit, shit, shit is all you need."

"Hey, pretty girl," said Jacob, leaning his forehead against mine, "I love everything about you."

"Even my shit?"

"Absolutely your shit."

"That's gross, Jake," I said, leaning into him. "But thank you anyway."

One afternoon in mid-December, Jacob knocked on my door. When I opened it, he proudly showed me a gigantic tree he'd found somewhere.

"This is just the top part," he said. "It blew over in a storm and Jared and I split it up. He and Kim have the bottom part but I wanted to get the point for you."

"Aww, how sweet!" I stood on tip-toes to kiss him. "Bring it in!"

I watched him heft the thing into my living room. Pine needles got everywhere. He worked up enough of a sweat to take his shirt off, and by the time the tree was set up I was so horned out I fucked him right on the living room floor, riding him till his bones rattled.

Afterward, we lay nakedly cooling off on a pile of pine needles. They were everywhere; I had pine-rash on my knees.

"I made cookies," I said. "Come have some."

The cookies were really awful-looking. Jacob teased me mercilessly about them. "What is this one supposed to be?" he asked, holding up a deformed gingerbread man. "A leper?"

"He had a lot more limbs," I said poutily, "But I ate them."

"Oooh, I like the penis one. Hey, it looks like mine!"

"Yours is my very favoritest penis of all the penises ever. Hey, while you're giving your cookie cock a blow job, I'm gonna go vacuum up the pine needles."

"You'd better, you slob," he said through a mouthful of cookie. I wrapped myself in a robe and grabbed the mini-vac. Jacob started belting along with my _John Denver and the Muppets_ Christmas CD. I was halfway through the vast pile of tree drippings when I heard my front door open. Probably Leah coming for her stand-mixer back.

"Carlie? We were knocking." I straightened up slowly and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway, wrapped up in their designer coats and merino scarves and smug faces. My mother stepped forward with her arms outstretched. I stood still and allowed her to hug me. I felt suddenly cold. The sound of Jacob's singing in the kitchen took on a surreal quality, like I was hearing it through bad speakers.

"Hello, Carlie," said my father. "We were on our way up to Vancouver to see my parents and we thought we'd pop in and visit our favorite daughter. Don't want you spending Christmas alone, now do we?"

"I wasn't spending Christmas alone," I said numbly.

"Well, you wouldn't have to if you would just come see us once in a while," beamed my mother. "Why, I have a marvelous idea! Why don't you come with us?"

"I'm not alone," I said again, louder.

"Oooh," said my mother, winking. "I thought that was the radio."

"Am I finally going to meet the young man who's seeing my daughter?" asked my father jocularly. "Got to vet him, be sure he's right for my little girl. I can't say I think much of his musical abilities, but I'm sure he has other qualities." I stepped away from them, backed into the fireplace, sent a stand of pokers crashing to the floor. The singing cut off in the kitchen.

"Nessie, you okay?" Jacob asked. "What was—" He appeared in the doorway, still nude, and all the post-coital happiness drained from his face as he saw who was standing in my living room. A look of total loathing took its place. I'd never seen him look so hateful.

I'd never seen my father look so hateful, either. My mother gaped dumbly from me to Jake to me again.

"What on earth is that—that _person_ doing in this house?" my father demanded.

"Well," I said slowly, "He brought me a Christmas tree and then he fucked me on my living room floor, and if you guys hadn't shown up he probably would have been fucking me some more by now."

"Carlie, language!" wailed my mother.

"You scum!" Edward shouted at Jacob. "You perverted, indecent…" His face mottled red and he trailed off, apparently lost in his own fury. Jacob very deliberately walked over and picked up his boxers, slowly pulled them on, never breaking eye contact with my father.

"Ness," said Jacob with snake-charmer calm, "Would you consider me a pervert?"

"Only a little," I answered thoughtfully.

"Well," he said, clapping his hands once and rubbing them together, "There you have it. No need for name-calling."

"You are an absolute scoundrel," said my father furiously. "You are old enough to have sired this girl. How dare you steal her innocence like some—"

"_Sired_?" I echoed in disgust. "Ew, Dad."

"And you," he shouted, turning on me, "You should have come to us the moment this creep took advantage of you. You don't have to accept this situation. Your mother and I would have helped you!"

"Ugh, chill out, Dad," I said. "You're embarrassing me in front of my _gentleman caller_." I stage-whispered the last part.

"You need to take this more seriously, young lady!" Edward's eyes bulged. He took a step toward me, his finger pointed at my face. Jacob immediately crossed to my side and looked down at Edward.

"You probably don't realize this," he said with exaggerated civility, "But your posture seems very threatening. Perhaps you could lower your voice. And your…finger." He raised one heavy curving eyebrow at the offending appendage.

"Oh, Jacob," my mother sobbed, "How could you? Was your desire for revenge so strong you would go to this length—"

"Revenge? I don't recall a need for revenge."

"I know you were upset when I chose Edward over you, but this, _this_—"

"Bella," Jacob said evenly, "You are truly delusional if you think that this has anything at all to do with you."

"Of course it does," she snapped. "I know the way you people work, you're—"

"'_You people'_?" I repeated. "Dial it back, Mom, your horns are showing."

"Carlie," said my father, "Did this man force himself on you?"

"No, Dad. Quite the reverse, actually. Yes, very much the reverse. Well, I mean, there _was_ force, but since I asked for it…"

"That's enough of that kind of talk, young lady. To think that we wanted to come spend a nice family Christmas with you, and all this time you've been hiding this sordid secret."

"Oh, Jake's not all _that_ sordid," I protested.

"He is _far_ too old for you, Carlie. You're a _child_!"

"I disagree," I said cheerfully. "I think he is exactly the right amount old for me. I mean, it's not like he's withered on the vine or anything."

"You are disgusting," my father began, advancing on Jacob.

"Nessie doesn't think so…well, last time I checked, anyway. Do you think I'm disgusting, Nessie?"

"_Nessie_?" my mother cried. "You nicknamed my daughter after the _Loch Ness Monster_?"

"Well, sorry, Bella, but Renesmee is just a really ridiculous name. No offense, Ness."

"None taken."

"This has gone on long enough," interrupted my father. "Jacob, you need to get the hell out so we can have a talk with our daughter."

"That's up to Nessie."

"I would prefer it if Jake stayed," I said. "That way I can be sure of having one person here I like." My mother renewed her weeping.

"This is not up to you," my father said—to Jake or me, I wasn't sure which.

"This house belongs to me," I said firmly. "It is in my name. You can't kick anyone out of it without my say-so. Jake, if you want to leave, I'll understand. I kind of want to leave now, too." He took my hand and squeezed it. My father caught the gesture and a vein began to bulge in his forehead.

"If you want to spend your time dallying with lecherous mongrels, that's your business—"

"Thanks," I said gratefully.

"—But you can say goodbye to getting any help from us."

"What help was I getting? I've been on my own out here. You already used your money as leverage to get me to come back to California, and it didn't work. Why would it work now? That card's been played. Sorry, Dad."

My father looked apoplectic. He took a step back, then a step forward, and then he sucker-punched Jacob in the face.

"Hey!" said Jacob mildly. "That stings!" I saw my father flex his hand painfully and heard crackles. With any luck, his valuable piano-playing fingers would be broken. Jacob had a red mark on his cheekbone, nothing serious. Hell, I'd inflicted worse on him in the throes of consensually-abusive passion.

Still, he couldn't let it slide. So he reached out, put both hands on my father's shoulders and simply pushed him to the floor. Edward's legs crumpled beautifully beneath him and he hit the piney carpet humiliatingly fast. He was unhurt but his face turned purple with embarrassment as he struggled to regain his feet.

"Oh, Edward!" My mother tugged at my father's sleeve. "Let's leave here. Oh, I wish we'd never come!"

"You're quite right, Bella," he said, hustling her out the door. "Don't come crying to us when you can't pay your mortgage, Renesmee."

"I don't have a mortgage!" I called after him. "Grandpa Charlie took care of that!" I slammed the door on them and waited till I heard their BMW peal out of the snow-covered driveway.

Then I collapsed in tears.

"Ness, hey, pretty girl, it's going to be okay…" Jake reached out to me; I put my arms around his neck and he picked me up, carried me to the couch. I sobbed openly into his collarbone. Streams of salty tears found their level. "You did great, Nessie, you did so good just now."

"I h-hate them," I stuttered. "A-assholes."

"I know," he murmured. "They are assholes." He lifted my chin up with one finger. "Hey, I love the hell out of you. Do you know that?" I nodded wetly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Hmmng," I blubbed. Jacob settled back and I curled up in his lap, drawing my feet up under me. It took me an hour to cry myself out. Jacob's chest was crusty with salt trails and snot by the time I was finished, and I was totally dehydrated.

"Hey, Jake?" I said at last through a mouth like a desert.

"Mm hmm?"

"Thanks for knocking my dad down."

"No problem, pretty girl."

"And Jake?"

"Mm?"

"You can hit him harder, next time. If you want to. I won't mind." Jacob chuckled.

"And, Jake?" I said, struggling to get this one last thing out before my cry-exhausted brain shut down.

"Yeah?"

"I love you, too, Jake."


End file.
